John Creller of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Chapter 10 of Local 15. Inset, the sign in front of the Teamsters union hall. / Dean Curtis/News-Leader

How many people are part of a union?

In 2012, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, union members accounted for 8.9 percent of wage and salary workers in Missouri, compared with 10.9 percent in 2011. Nationwide, union members accounted for 11.3 percent of employed wage and salary workers in 2012, down from 11.8 percent in 2011. At its peak in 1989, the first year for which comparable state data were available, the union membership rate for Missouri was 15.5 percent, according to the bureau.

What is Right to Work?

Despite its name, Right to Work (or Freedom to Work as supporters have begun calling it) laws do not create a right to employment. What Right to Work laws do is prevent requirements that workers pay union fees as a condition of employment. A Right to Work bill currently being considered by the General Assembly is sponsored by Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Springfield. This is the third year Burlison has introduced a Right to Work bill, though his bill has never been debated on the House floor. A House hearing was held last week on Burlison’s bill and hearings on other similar bills are expected to take place soon. Opponents say Right to Work often amounts to union-busting and will lower wages. “Why don’t they call it what it is? It’s the right to work for less,” said John Creller, field representative for the Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers Chapter 10 of Local 15. Supporters argue that Right to Work does not lower wages for union workers and will draw jobs to the state. “For far too long, Missourians have left the state to find job opportunities elsewhere. Over the past decade, Missouri has lost jobs and citizens to other states,” Burlison said. Though both sides in the Right to Work debate claim data and research are on their side, the reality of whether Right to Work helps or harms a state’s economy is difficult to pin down. Most Right to Work states adopted the law decades ago. Those states, concentrated in the south and the plains, sometimes have other economic advantages, such as geography and natural resources, that make it hard to determine the boost Right to Work offers decades after being implemented. A 2012 study from Ball State University in Indiana found that the impact of Right to Work laws are tough to separate from other business-friendly policies. The study ultimately found that Right to Work would not likely have an effect on manufacturing in Indiana, which was considering enacting a law at the time. Indiana did pass Right to Work, but this fall a state judge ruled it unconstitutional.

More

ADVERTISEMENT

As a field representative for the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Chapter 10 of Local 15, John Creller works with members not just in southwest Missouri, but also in select counties in southeast Kansas.

The border, he said last week, matters.

“The wages there are substantially lower,” Creller said of Kansas. “There are fewer jobs.”

The difference between the regions, Creller said, can be attributed to Kansas being a so-called “Right to Work” state.

But the border might not mean as much in the future. With the arrival of the new legislative session, Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, has declared 2014 the year the General Assembly will debate Right to Work. In a signal of intent, lawmakers held one of the first legislative hearings of the year on Monday to consider a related bill.

And Springfield union leaders have noticed.

“I think it’s a legitimate threat,” said Jim Kabell, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 245. “The Right to Work proponents have been gaining a little ground year by year. I don’t know what it will take to change that or stop that.”

He and other Springfield union leaders contacted by the News-Leader last week said Right to Work would prompt negative ramifications not just for their members, but for the general public as well — and the unions are willing to fire back.

“I just think it’s an attack on middle class workers,” said Randy Appleby, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 453.

“It’s all about corporate greed,” Creller said.

The union leaders said some Right to Work proponents are either misinformed or blatantly lying when they accuse unions of having too much influence over workers, oversized political clout and a “union boss” mentality.

Paying their dues

Depending on the season, the bricklayers union has about 130 to 200 active members, Creller said. Union dues are $16 a month, and the union takes 6 percent from members’ gross paycheck in what is known as a “checkoff.” Half of the 6 percent goes toward the costs of representation, with the other 3 percent going to other programs.

Unions have played a key role in Creller’s family.

His father was a union bricklayer, he said, and a grandfather a union laborer. Asked to name some accomplishments of the bricklayers union, Creller pointed to its history.

“This chapter has been here in Springfield since 1902,” he said. “That’s a pretty good accomplishment in itself.”

At the United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 178, which has about 300 active members locally, monthly dues are $34 a month for apprentices and $44 for journeymen, Business Manager Mark McCarty said. The union takes 3 percent from members’ gross paychecks in what he described as “working assessment.”

“I have to run for an election every three years,” he said. “If I were the evil union boss, I don’t know that I would be re-elected.”

McCarty pushed back against what he feels has been a false claim by lawmakers that workers who don’t want to join a union don’t have options, noting his union only represents about 10 percent of the local plumbing workforce.

“There are plenty of options out there if an individual doesn’t want to be in the union,” McCarty said.

“How exactly is it 10 percent of the workforce that is causing all the problems?” he added.

Even laborers who don’t belong to the union benefit from it, McCarty said.

“We still help to set a standard even for our non-union peers as far as wages and benefits,” he said.

At the Electrical Workers Local 453, monthly dues vary from $17 to $32, and, depending on member classification, the working assessment can take the form of a flat fee or a percentage cut, Appleby said. The union has between 500 and 600 members.

“As organized labor goes, so goes the middle class,” Appleby said.

Appleby said that unions don’t have an outsize role in politics; they’re simply pulled into debates such as these.

“This is politics that’s striking out at organized labor.”

The Teamsters Local 245 has between 2,100 and 2,200 members, Kabell said, representing a variety of occupations from workers at the Dairy Farmers of America plant and Associated Wholesale Grocers to the school bus drivers for Springfield Public Schools.

Monthly wages are equal to 2.5 times a worker’s hourly salary, for an average of about $45. The union doesn’t take a cut from members’ paychecks.

Kabell said members decide for themselves whether they want to contribute to the union’s Political Action Fund, which doesn’t draw from the same fund designated for monthly dues.

“We don’t spend 1 red cent out of our treasury on political candidates,” he said.

About 800 members choose to contribute to the fund, Kabell said.

Lawmakers weigh in

Lawmakers who support Right to Work say the legislation expands freedom for workers. Rep. Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, said he has supported Right to Work since before he was a representative.

Haahr said despite union employees making up a low percentage of workers, those workers still deserve more choice.

“Those 10 percent don’t have a choice at the end of the day. Why would we give people less freedom?” Haahr said.

Rep. Lyndall Fraker, R-Marshfield, also supports Right to Work. Like Haahr, he emphasized that the legislation gives workers choice.

Haahr said he would tell a constituent or citizen who disagrees with his stance on Right to Work that his job is to make tough decisions and do what he thinks is best for the state.

“I am not telling them they cannot join a union,” Haahr said. “All I’m doing is saying they can if they want to.”

Some legislators have said unions focus — and spend — too heavily on politics instead of focusing on their members.

“It's time to remind Missourians that labor unions are no longer about representing the interests of the worker, but instead they have become one of the largest political forces in the country, spending millions and millions of dollars to protect their own self-interest,” House Speaker Tim Jones said at a rally a couple weeks ago. “Political forces that exclusively support ideologies which do not represent the common sense of Missouri.”

Fraker criticized union tactics used in support of a minimum wage hike. Protests have been held across the nation over the past several months, including in St. Louis, where non-union fast food workers have gone on strike and others have demonstrated in front of restaurants.

“To actually get out and picket or try to entice others, I think that’s wrong,” Fraker said. “You rarely ever see people who do not support unions — you don’t see them picketing union shops.”

Even though leadership in the House and local lawmakers have indicated a willingness to tackle Right to Work, Senate leaders have been less enthusiastic. Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey said the issue has been difficult for him. He said believes the policy is right for the state, but added that he has union friends.

Several area lawmakers have said they believe the only option for passing Right to Work is to put it on the ballot.

Clark Brown, Missouri legislative director for Service Employees International Union, which has 10,000 workers across the state, said Republicans likely don’t have enough votes to override a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon.